The Meaning of Life with Gay Byrne

Gay Byrne interviews fellow veteran broadcaster Terry Wogan about his thoughts on ageism, religion and a life which has had its highs and lows, its moments of tragedy, laughter and success. Terry Wogan – or Sir Terry, as he points out he’s perfectly entitled to call himself – kicks off the series on 26th September. He begins by revealing how, during his Limerick upbringing, the Jesuits and Redemptorists did their best to put the fear of God into him. “You were always committing sin. You know, pick your nose, you’re committing a sin… And going into confession, you used to make up sins so that you weren’t wasting the priest’s time. Ridiculous!” Despite that background – or perhaps because of it – Terry is not a believer now, though he respects those who do have what he calls “the gift of faith,” including his wife, Helen. Wogan speaks movingly about the death of his first child, Vanessa, and acknowledges that, while his wife found consolation in her Catholic faith, he never could. Gay and Terry discuss a lifetime career in broadcasting, what he feels was the secret of his success and how his thoughts on what matters in life have changed over time.

Emmy and IFTA-winning actress, Fionnula Flanagan, reveals to Gay Byrne how her moral compass owes much more to her ex-communicated, alcoholic revolutionary father than to the nuns who educated her. She also talks candidly about her own battle with drink; about acting as a vocation; and about the God she believes in… and the one she doesn’t. Fionnula Flanagan grew up in Dublin. Her mother was a fairly conventional, practising Catholic, but her father was a revolutionary, who had fought against Franco’s Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. He returned, not only wounded, but ex-communicated by the Catholic Church, and that instilled in him a bitter resentment of priests. Nonetheless, Fionnula was educated mainly at Catholic schools – Holy Faith, Whitehall; Scoil Mhuire and Scoil Chaitríona – and still has tremendous respect for the nuns who taught her. Even so, she doesn’t share the faith they tried to instil in her and certainly not their trust in the institutional Church.

Dr. Deepak Chopra’s journey from a Hindu/Catholic childhood in Delhi, via Western medicine in Boston, to his current position as the world’s most prolific and best-selling author on spiritual matters, was never going to yield conventional answers to life’s big questions. Gay Byrne discovers that the self-styled “quack,” who has sold over 20 million copies of his sixty books and who has Oprah, Obama, Prince Charles, and Madonna on speed-dial, has plenty to say about why spirituality needs rescuing from religion… and why he’s no fan of Richard Dawkins.

Gay Byrne talks to Rev Ian Paisley about the staunch upbringing and firm beliefs that made him Ulster's "Dr No." Ian Paisley is a preacher turned politician who played a controversial yet important role in Northern Ireland's Troubles and the subsequent peace. As Northern Ireland descended into sectarian violence in the late 1960s, Paisley emerged as protester-in-chief of anything he perceived to threaten its status as part of the United Kingdom. Paisley would ultimately end his political career as the First Minister of Northern Ireland, sharing power with the republican Sinn Féin party he had long opposed. He resigned as First Minister and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in 2008 and was made a life peer two years later.

Micheál Ó Muicheartaigh’s decision to retire from GAA commentary after 61 years offers a chance to reflect on a life steeped in faith from the start. From station Masses in Dingle and his dying mother’s last words to his thoughts on the after-life, he tells Gay Byrne how that life shaped his beliefs…and vice versa. Not that he has any plans to meet his maker just yet, firmly hoping that it will be another fifty years before the Bainisteoir in the sky calls him from the field.

This week Gay Byrne talks to Eurovision Song Contest Winner Dana about growing in Derry, her political career and her unwavering faith which has sustained her throughout her life.